Jorge Torrez is charged with killing a woman in Virginia and two girls in Illinois. (Arlington County Police Department)

Following his conviction at a federal death penalty trial Tuesday, Jorge Torrez’s life is in the hands of jurors who are expected to hear evidence that he committed a string of brutal crimes, including the 2005 murders of two young girls in a Lake County park.

In an Alexandria, Va., federal court, jurors deliberated for roughly four hours before convicting Torrez, a Zion native and former Marine, of murdering 20-year-old sailor Amanda Snell in the barracks building they shared in 2009. Sentencing is set to begin April 21.

Prosecutors are seeking his execution, and the sentencing hearing is expected to revolve in part around a 2005 Zion double-murder notorious both for its viciousness and for the troubled investigation it spawned. Torrez walked free for five years while Lake County authorities blamed the father of one of the girls, even after DNA indicated his innocence. Prosecutors say Torrez killed Snell and raped another woman while Jerry Hobbs sat in jail awaiting trial for killing Krystal Tobias, 9, and Laura Hobbs, 8.

Torrez was once friends with Krystal’s half-brother, Alberto Segura, and Segura said he anticipates being called as a witness at the sentencing. As the ninth anniversary of his sister’s death approaches, Segura, 24, of Kenosha, said he’s ready to move past the tragedy, and he expects it will be hard to be in the same room with his old friend.

Asked what he wants to happen to Torrez, Segura said, “That’s between (the jurors) and God.”

Patrick Smith, the longtime partner of Jerry Hobbs’ mother, said his belief in the death penalty has been shaken by what he now knows of the justice system.“I feel terribly sorry for (Snell’s) family, and I feel like if the police and prosecutor in (Lake County) had done their jobs they wouldn’t have lost a daughter,” Smith said.

Virginia federal prosecutors accused Torrez of strangling Snell with a laptop cord “in order to obtain sexual gratification.” Authorities had DNA evidence pointing to his guilt, according to court records.

Torrez’s lawyers argued he wasn’t responsible for Snell’s death, and he has maintained his innocence of the other crimes of which he's been accused. Defense attorney Robert Jenkins said he was disappointed in the verdict and that it would be appealed, based in part on evidence allowed at trial involving Torrez’s conviction in a string of attacks on women, including a rape and abduction, in Virginia in 2010.

Torrez’s parents and sister were at the Virginia trial, Jenkins said.

“It’s tough. They’re hurt. They’re disappointed,” he said.

The same jury that heard the trial will decide Torrez’s sentence, prosecutors said, and the only possible sentences are death or life without parole. A life sentence would pile atop the five life sentences plus 168 years Torrez is already serving for the 2010 Virginia attacks.

Federal executions are rare. The federal government has executed only three people in the last 25 years. One was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.Once the federal proceedings end, Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Nerheim hopes to try Torrez for the Zion killings promptly, he said.

Immediately after the girl’s bodies were found in a park in May 2005, detectives focused on Jerry Hobbs. Authorities were suspicious of his long criminal record and felt his grief seemed insincere. After some 24 hours of intermittent questioning, he confessed.

In 2007, DNA tests showed that semen found inside Laura's body didn't belong to her father. Prosecutors under former Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller insisted the DNA didn't indicate Hobbs' innocence because the semen could be explained by the girl playing in an area where couples went for sex. It was one of four cases in which his office continued to prosecute a defendant despite forensic evidence indicating his innocence. All the cases have collapsed.

Authorities allegedly linked Torrez by DNA to the Zion slayings after he was arrested and charged with the attacks on women in Virginia in 2010. That year, prosecutors freed Hobbs and they charged Torrez with the murders in 2012. Hobbs sued Lake County authorities, settling for nearly $8 million.